1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to acquisition and processing of data and more particularly to acquisition and processing of microarray data for displaying, monitoring, and/or demonstrating the progress of an experiment substantially in real-time.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
The formation of an array of biologically or chemically active spots on the surface of a substrate for identifying constituents in test material brought into contact with the array is known, such as with a biochip (also referred to as a gene chip, protein chip, microarray, and others). Typically, such processes require spots of, for example, oligonucleotides, cloned DNA, antibodies, peptides, receptors, enzymes, and/or inhibitors, which are processed to exhibit characteristics such as fluorescence, electroluminescence, current change, and/or voltage change, for providing a detectable signature for the presence of constituents in the material being tested.
Typically, microarray experiments have been analyzed at or near the approximate endpoint of reactions, which is presumed to be equilibrium, and real-time and/or time-resolved information have not been provided. Disadvantageously, such endpoint analysis does not allow for monitoring of or collaboration about the process under investigation, thus losing kinetic data, affinity data, and other time-resolved data regarding the process. Such endpoint analysis also does not allow for modification or early termination of the experiment if an error occurs, thus wasting time and resources.
Thus, there is a need for a method and apparatus to gather, process, and display image data which is highly sensitive and substantially at real-time and/or time-resolved.